Does Women’s Interpersonal Anxiety Track Changes in Steroid Hormone Levels?

Presentation Year

2019

College or Department

College of Professional Studies

Short Description of your Research or Creative Project (700 characters or less)

Previous studies have suggested that women’s interpersonal anxiety will track changes in progesterone during the menstrual cycle. There have been few direct tests of this hypothesis. The present study used a longitudinal design to investigate whether interpersonal anxiety tracked changes in steroid hormones during the menstrual cycle. Women reported greater interpersonal sensitivity and anxiety in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle compared to the follicular phase. More recent work did not replicate this effect of cycle phase on anxiety. Given results for attachment anxiety and progesterone, we predicted that women would report greater anxious jealousy when progesterone was high.

Permission to Publish Work

No